Effect of annealing on the electrical properties and atomic structure of a-Si:H alloys

The effect of annealing on the photo-and-dark conductivity, spin density, and the atomic structure have been studied as a function of annealing temperature for a series of amorphous Si:H alloys by reactive sputtering. At annealing temperature below 2000C the dark conductivity, spin density decrease slightly with increase of annealing temperature, the photoconductivity gradually decrease, this may be due to the thermal relaxation. At annealing temperature above 4000C, the dark conductivity and spin density rapidly increase with increase of annealing temperature while the photoconductivity rapidly decreases because of evolution of hydrogen. The systematic changes of x-ray diffraction interference function and the pair distribution function are observed in these alloys with annealing temperature. A correlation is found between the photoconductivity, the E.S.R. and the atomic structure